Healthcare providers typically utilize locally maintained computing platforms to manage customer records. Utilization of locally maintained computer platforms is primarily dictated by customer concerns regarding privacy and the healthcare providers' duty to comply with industry and government standards, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”). However, updates to the locally maintained platforms are disruptive to systems with high-availability requirements. Moreover, local/on premise platforms that keep proprietary data away from cloud environments limit technical support, understanding of platform/application usage patterns, and present testing challenges for cloud-based service providers.
To overcome the disruption caused by locally maintained platforms, healthcare providers often find it desirable to utilize cloud platforms. However, healthcare customers are concerned about privacy provided by cloud platforms. Furthermore, processing of proprietary or sensitive information cannot be performed using cloud-based platforms due to data security concerns that violate customer trust and HIPAA. The healthcare providers' desire to keep certain information away from cloud environments limits localized configuration management, and introduces complexity and deployment problems into cloud based systems.